"okabu" Posts

It’s time to warm up your flippers and take to the skies of Okabu! Today is launch day, and if you head to the PlayStation Store in a few hours, you’ll find Okabu waiting there for you. The free demo is also available today, so if you’d like to take it for a spin, now’s your chance!

In case this is the first time that you’ve seen the game, it’s time for a bit of background. Okabu is a co-op action-adventure following the adventures of two cloud-whale brothers, Kumulo and Nimbe. They’ve been dispatched from their aerial homelands to investigate the source of a toxic pollution that’s been poisoning their people.

Since we started development, a lot of people have commented on how much they love the music of Okabu, created by our very talented partners at Resonate. Liam and the Resonate team have blown us away with what they’ve managed to create, and they’ve made a behind-the-scenes video to give you a bit of background. I’ll let Music Director Liam Paton explain in his own words!

With the release of Okabu almost upon us, we wanted to share a short film that documents our last 12 months working on the soundtrack to the game. It has been such a great project to work on and hopefully the footage captures the fun that we had along the way.

With less than a week to go until OKABU launches, we’re slightly over-excited about getting it into your hands! There’s still so much to talk about the game, so we wanted to delve a little deeper into the world of OKABU and the different lands that make up the adventure.

We got a slightly carried away during development, and the game ended up quite a bit bigger than we’d originally imagined. Personally I blame Shane (OKABU’s level designer), who kept on suggesting awesome new ideas that we felt we really couldn’t cut. As a result the four worlds are pretty huge, so big that OKABU features a Platinum Trophy, earned through tracking down all the medals throughout the story campaign, finding the numerous secrets tucked away throughout the world, as well as besting the four minigames.

Its been a couple of months since we were last here talking about OKABU, our upcoming PSN-exclusive action-adventure, and we’re thrilled to be part of this month’s “Only On PSN” program, sitting alongside such awesome titles as Pixeljunk Sidescroller, Eufloria and Rochard.

So the big news is that we finally have a release date! OKABU will be hitting PSN on October 18th, and there’ll be a demo available on launch day that’ll let you take our cloud-flying heroes for a test flight. With launch only a couple of weeks away, we wanted to share a few more details about the game, and what you’ll be doing as you guide Kumulo and Nimbe through the four worlds that make up the story campaign.

We’re excited to announce a new program called “Only On PSN,” which features brand new games that are exclusively available on PlayStation Network throughout October. Every week starting tomorrow, October 4, you will find new titles, unique to PSN that are part of this program – games that you’ve likely read about here on the PlayStation Blog, or seen during our showing at E3 2011. You may recall our announcement a few months ago about investing $20 million in exclusive PSN titles, and the Only On PlayStation Network program showcases two titles spawning from this investment: Eufloria and Okabu.

We can’t wait for you to get your hands on the Only On PSN games yourselves, so we’re giving you a few special offers throughout the course of the program.

We continually strive to make PlayStation Network the most innovative console game and entertainment service and that’s why we’re thrilled to announce a three-year, $20 million dollar investment plan to develop PSN exclusive games. Our line of PSN exclusives has had great success with titles such as Joe Danger, Critter Crunch, Flower and the PixelJunk series, and we’re excited to add new and different game experiences to this portfolio of games that can’t be found on any other game console. This investment includes support across both our own network of first-party studios as well as for the Pub Fund, which was first introduced at GDC in 2009.

HandCircus is a really small team — there are only five of us at the studio! In addition to myself, we have Mikko and Matt handling art needs, Luke spearheading programming and Shane tackling level design. We’ve also been working with Resonate Music, who have been crafting Okabu’s original, authentic African-inspired soundtrack. Their studio has been filled to the rafters with all manner of exotic instruments like Marimbas, Kalimbas, Vibraphones as well as some extremely talented vocalists. Read on to learn more about how we’re implementing co-op, physics puzzles and minigames to make Okabu our most immersive game yet!

Always-on Co-op

Co-op is at the core of the game. Even single player is a co-op experience because it allows you to swap between Kumulo and Nimbe (and they hero that they may be carrying) at any time. Much of the game revolves around using the different skills of the heroes together – get Monkfish to pull open a door, then Picolo can lure a bull through and get it to take out a dastardly Dozabot.